These thick, buttery, soft birthday cookies have an incredibly dense (yet moist!) texture and are topped with a delicious cream cheese frosting! Prepare for these scrumptious funfetti cookies to become your new favorite birthday recipe!
Why I LOVE This Birthday Cake Cookie Recipe
- Incredible texture: these thick birthday cake cookies with frosting have a dense, chewy texture that is at the same time so soft and luscious. If you've ever tried my all-time favorite lemon sugar cookies, this recipe uses that same incredible base dough! No premade cake mix or oil here.
- Buttery cake batter flavor: these cookies use cake batter extract to give them that iconic, buttery cake batter flavor! If you can't find that, this recipe still works great as a regular sugar using vanilla, almond or lemon extract.
- Festive & fun: Rainbow sprinkles are truly the gateway to all my favorite cookies & are the perfect addition to any birthday party. These are so fun for birthday treats or anytime you're trying to win a baking competition. You can even mix in white chocolate chips!
Ingredient Notes & Substitutions
- For the best results, don't skip the cake batter extract! A lot of grocery stores carry this now but you can also buy it on Amazon for a few bucks - it's so good in baked goods, frostings, or even directly in ice cream! Apparently, McCormick just changed the name of their "vanilla butter and nut flavor" to cake batter, so if you have that on hand, it's likely the same thing! If needed, you can use ¼ teaspoon of almond extract in the dough & ¼ teaspoon in the frosting. Or for a more natural flavor, you can substitute in more pure vanilla extract or imitation vanilla.
- Scoop them big! To get thick, moist large cookies, I highly recommend scooping these ¼ cup big (I used a 4-tablespoon cookie scoop but you can also use a medium ice cream scooper).
- Try them chilled! The texture gets even more perfectly dense & chewy after a night in the fridge! I developed this base dough before Crumbl cookies existed (and I haven't tried their birthday cake cookies yet!) but I'd say the texture of these cookies is very similar to their other chilled cookies!
- Once frosted, store them in an airtight container.
Looking for a more traditional birthday cake? Make my funfetti cookie cake! It's a sprinkle-filled, chewy cookie cake that has a classic birthday cake flavor...but in cookie form!
Watch me make these on TikTok!
These birthday cake cookies have gained over 300k views on TikTok! One follower said, "I just made these tonight after watching your video- they are SO good!".
How to Make The Best Birthday Cake Cookies:
This is just an overview showing step-by-step photos, jump down to full recipe card with exact instructions.
Step 1: Make Dough
Follow the instructions in the recipe card below to make the sugar cookie dough. No need to separate the wet & dry ingredients, everything can go in one large bowl! The texture of the dough should be similar to playdoh (it will firm up after a few minutes as the melted butter cools). If it looks runnier than the photo below, add 1-2 tablespoons of flour.
Mixing tip: I love this dough recipe because the melted butter allows you to mix it by hand without an electric mixer (and avoids having to use room-temperature ingredients!). That said, you will need to make the frosting using a hand mixer or in a bowl of a stand mixer for it to truly become smooth.
Step 2: Scoop, Roll, Flatten, Bake
After scooping into 4 tablespoon-sized cookie dough balls (i.e. ¼ cup), use your hands to roll into balls and then flatten the tops a bit to look like thick discs (see below). This helps them bake and spread into a nice even cookie without having dome tops.
Remove them from the oven when the centers no longer look wet, but before you see any golden brown color around the edges.
Tip: If you're passionate about big, bakery-style cookies then you need this ¼ cup cookie scoop!
Step 3: Make Frosting
After allowing the baked cookies to cool, whip up a batch of the cake batter cream cheese frosting and pipe it on top. This buttercream frosting is super creamy, has a butter cake batter flavor, and is the perfect consistency for piping basic swirls or spreading with a knife.
Tip: When piping, hold the tip very close (but not touching) to the cookie to get an even layer of frosting. Holding it too high above the cookie & swirling it will result in a THICK layer and you will likely run out of frosting before you frost all the cookies ;) If you like a very thick layer, 1.5x or 2x the frosting recipe.
Step 4: Top with sprinkles!
Top each cookie with rainbow sprinkles, then enjoy! These are so much better than dry, store-bought cookies and you won't turn back after making these birthday cake cookies from scratch!
They are sure to win over any crowd or just to make for a weekend treat and may just remind you of the popular crumbl birthday cake cookies!
Storage & Freezing
- Storing: Because the frosting uses cream cheese, you need to store the frosted cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator. These cookies stay soft & moist for 3-4 days. If you are leaving the frosting off, no refrigeration is needed. Simply store in an airtight container (and you can even put a slice of bread in the container to make them last longer!).
- Freezing: While you can freeze the frosted cookies, I would recommend freezing them unfrosted to prevent the sprinkle colors from bleeding. When ready to serve, thaw cookies and top with freshly made cream cheese frosting and sprinkles.
Gifting idea: Gift them in a bakery box and attach a gift card! Check out my 7 Easy Cookie Packaging Ideas for packaging links and printable tags!
Tips & Tricks
- Don't skip the cake batter extract! A lot of grocery stores carry this now but you can also buy it on Amazon for a few bucks - it's so good in baked goods, frostings, or even directly in cake batter ice cream! Apparently, McCormick just changed the name of their "vanilla butter and nut flavor" to cake batter, so if you have that on hand, it's likely the same thing!
- Scoop them big! To get a thick, moist cookie I highly recommend scooping these ¼ cup big (I used a 4-tablespoon cookie scoop!).
- Try them chilled! The texture gets even more perfectly dense & chewy after a night in the fridge! I developed this base dough before Crumbl existed (and I haven't tried their birthday cake flavor yet!) but I'd say the texture of these cookies is very similar to their other chilled cookies!
Frequently Asked Questions:
Frosted Birthday Cake Cookies
Ingredients
⭐️ Before you begin! If you make this, will you do me a huge favor afterwards and leave a review and rating letting me know how you liked this recipe? This helps my small business thrive so I can continue providing free recipes and high-quality content for you.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and set aside.
- In a small glass bowl, microwave ¾ cup unsalted butter (i.e. 1 ½ sticks) until melted. Pour into large mixing bowl. Add in ½ cup granulated sugar and ½ cup powdered sugar and stir until incoporated.
- Add 1 large egg, extra 1 egg yolk, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and ½ teaspoon cake batter extract and stir until incorporated.
- Add 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda and ¼ teaspoon salt. Mix until combined. Half cup at a time, add 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour and mix until flour is just incorporated. Mix in ¼ cup rainbow sprinkles.The texture of the dough should be similar to playdoh (it will firm up after a few minutes as the melted butter cools). If it looks runnier than the photo above, add 1-2 tablespoons of flour.
- Scoop dough into ¼ cup (i.e. 4-tablespoon sized) scoops, then roll into a ball. Lightly flatten each ball before placing on cookie sheet. (Because this has melted butter, do not let the dough sit out before rolling into balls & baking, or your dough will become dry and crumbly.)
- Bake at 350° degrees for 11-12 minutes until center no longer looks wet and the edges have the tiniest amount of brown. They may look slightly underdone, but they will finish baking on the hot cookie sheet after you take it out of the oven. (Of course, because ovens bake differently use your best judgment to keep them in a minute longer if they look severely underbaked.)
- After removing from oven, allow the cookies to cool on the hot baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing them from cookie sheet.
- Note: if you like a THICK layer of frosting, double the frosting recipe!
- In a large bowl, beat the ¼ cup unsalted butter (i.e. ½ stick) and 4 ounces cream cheese on medium speed using a hand or stand mixer (with paddle attachment) for about 1 minute (until light and creamy).
- Keeping the mixer on medium speed, slowly add in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon cake batter extract and 1 ½ cups powdered sugar. Once incorporated, turn mixer to high speed and beat for 2 minutes until creamy.If your frosting is too thick, add 1-2 tablespoons milk to thin it out. If it it too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar.
- Spread or pipe frosting on cooled cookies and top with Rainbow sprinkles! For the perfect cookie swirl, I use a large round tip. Piping tip! When piping, hold the tip very close (but not touching) the cookie to get a even layer of frosting. Holding it too high above the cookie & swirling it will result in a THICK layer and you will likely run out of frosting before you frost all the cookies ;) If you like a very thick layer, 1.5x or 2x the frosting recipe.
- Store the frosted cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator. These cookies stay soft & moist for 3-4 days.
Notes from Melissa
Did you make this?
I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts! Leave a review & photo of your creation and be sure to mention @DesignEatRepeat or tag #DesignEatRepeat on Instagram!Save this recipe!
I'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
Delicious cookies that I make for my friend’s birthday. She requests these throughout the year because they are THAT good! Gave them to her today for her birthday and she loved them. Will always come back to this recipe.
I am so happy to hear you and your friend enjoy this recipe so much! Thank you so much for leaving a review, Grace!